Sig Christenson is a veteran military reporter who has made nine trips to the war zone. He writes regularly for Hearst about service members, veterans and heroes, among other topics. He is also the co-founder and former president of Military Reporters and Editors, founded in 2002.

Now retired in Hattiesburg, Miss., he thinks of writing a book about
the invasion because its success was overshadowed by an insurgency that
transformed the fortunes of America, and Iraq, only a few months later.

“I was in Israel last week and gave a desert warfare presentation to
the IDF, and as I go over it I’m amazed at how well the 3rd Infantry
Division soldiers fought and what all they accomplished,” Blount said in
a recent interview. “A lot of that’s been kind of overshadowed because
of the insurgency and all the things that happened after we got to
Baghdad.”

That’s true. But to have seen the 3rd Infantry Division at war was
also to know that it reflected its commander. An Austin native whose
father was an Air Force pilot, Blount would have happily followed in his
dad’s footsteps if not for bad eyesight. But he loved tanks, and so the
Army was an easy second choice.

In command of the division, he was shrewd but low-key, the kind of
leader who gave his subordinates the latitude to make decisions and do
their jobs without micromanagement – something no one in Iraq’s
Republican Guard could do and a failing that ultimately sealed Saddam
Hussein’s fate.

But more on that later, and more on other issues that arose after the
lightning victory, the decision to disband the Iraqi army chief among
them. One of Blount’s brigade commanders, Will Grimsley, neatly summed
up the working relationship between the boss and his lieutenants.

Now a two-star general who is chief of staff of the U.S. Strategic
Command at Offut AFB, Neb., Grimsley said he and his contemporaries had
trust in their superiors, trust in each other and trust from the top
down as well.

As an example, he knew and trusted his fellow brigade commanders so
well that he never worried about his flanks as the 1st Brigade, the unit
that photographer Mark Sobhani and I were embedded with, charged toward
Baghdad, conquering the country in only 21 days.

‘We knew that we were going to be able to do this because we all
trusted each other,” Grimsley said, adding that Blount gave them a great
deal of freedom to command. “We were never interfered with by the
division. We were enabled by the division.”

Good working relationships are the cornerstone of any success story, and you will hear more about them in the coming days.

But one story sums up Blount well for me. I was interviewing him as
the occupation began and, as always, he offered a realistic assessment
of where things stood. He clearly knew that Baghdad had a world of
problems and that neither he nor anyone else could wave a magic wand to
fix them. Still, Blount was relaxed. His men were on the streets doing
patrols and trying to fix a tattered city that symbolized a broken
nation.

There were rumors about Saddam coming out of hiding to lead a
rebellion against the American forces in Iraq, and as I mentioned that,
he chuckled.

“I hope so,” he said.

You could tell he would really have welcomed that attack, and that
was the essence of Buford Blount. He never boasted but never lacked for
confidence. And that attitude could be found everywhere down the line,
from Grimsley to the youngest platoon leader in the division. It was
something to behold, and I recall thinking before the invasion that it
was arrogance.

It wasn’t. As the western actor Walter Brennan liked to say in a 1960s-era TV series, “No brag, just fact.”

But so many years later, what 3rd ID and the 1st Marine Expeditionary
Force did in those three weeks of combat has been obscured by the great
sandstorm of stalemate born in the insurgency. And you can see why
Blount would like to make sure that what they did isn’t lost to history.

Original link is here: http://blog.mysanantonio.com/military/2013/03/a-victory-lost-to-history/

03/25/2013

Burned over 35 percent of his body and missing his ears, both pinkie
fingers and his left index finger, Shilo Harris, 38, is alive, thanks,
ironically, to a long war in Iraq that has driven a revolution in
military medicine.

Six months into his second tour of Iraq, Harris and his team were hit
by an improvised explosive device south of Baghdad on Feb. 19, 2007.
Three of his crew were killed, and another GI was injured. Their armored
Humvee was torn into pieces.

“I remember my friend coming over and checking on me,” Harris said.
“He was standing over me and was looking at me in sheer terror.”

He was treated quickly in the field and flown to a military hospital in Germany.

Placed in a drug-induced coma, Harris was put on continuous renal
replacement therapy, a form of artificial kidney support used in only a
few intensive care units around the country at the beginning of the war.

It is common today.

Medical advances have helped save nine in every 10 of the
worst-wounded GIs, even those with severe burns and multiple limb
amputations. In Vietnam, about three in every four patients lived.

The war also has spurred transformations in technology, as well as
the development of a sophisticated military research and clinical care
network that has grown exponentially here.

It has pumped millions of dollars into the San Antonio-area economy,
helped spur the creation of joint medic training and improved care for
240,000 military health beneficiaries as well as civilian emergency
patients in this region.

“Had we been in this war for one or two years, we might not have had
this sustained focus on combat casualty care research, but I've been to
Afghanistan three times and Iraq twice, and because of the duration,
we've had the opportunity,” said Air Force Col. Todd Rasmussen, a vascular and trauma surgeon and deputy commander of the U.S. Army Institute of Surgical Research in San Antonio.

03/24/2013

The war in Iraq had been under way for two weeks when the invading
3rd Infantry Division reached a critical bridge crossing the Euphrates
River, where U.S. troops expected fierce resistance. (See story, "A look back at decade of Iraq, here.)

Capt. Shad Magann,
commander of two close air support teams directing aerial attacks at
the front of the invasion, had to decide how to cross the 900-foot span.
As the armored column idled, he gave the order: make a mad dash in his
lightly armored Humvee.

The sprint across the bridge at Objective Peach the afternoon of
April 2, 2003, looked so suicidal that Magann's radio operator and
driver, Senior Airman Dan Housley,
questioned the order and then said a prayer — and so began the first of
two battles that sealed the invasion of Iraq, though not the long and
bitter war to come.

“Obstacle-wise, that was our last major hurdle to get over,” said retired Army Maj. Gen. Buford Blount III, who commanded the 3rd Infantry Division during the invasion and occupation.

“We knew we still had a Republican Guard division to fight through,
but we knew we could defeat them, and then once we got to Baghdad we'd
have the Special Republican Guard to fight,” he said, adding that
victory was inevitable. “That was really the choke point where they
could have put up substantial resistance and hindered our progress.”

Hundreds, if not thousands, of Iraqis died in a pair of major battles
at the bridge, with two Americans killed and two others injured.

But the path was cleared, and the fall of Baghdad a week later ended
the “shock and awe” phase of the campaign to remove dictator Saddam Hussein from power and give the country a chance to build a democracy.

Last week marked the 10th anniversary of the invasion, which sparked
an insurgency that drew American and coalition forces into a costly and
prolonged conflict that cost the lives of 4,800 coalition troops and
untold Iraqis, wounded tens of thousands and drew heated debate over
whether the war was necessary.

It also launched an era of asymmetrical war and the use of
increasingly sophisticated roadside bombs that have taken a huge toll on
troops in Iraq and Afghanistan.

03/22/2013

A military judge sentenced a former Air Force basic training
instructor to seven months in jail Thursday for having sex with two
women — one of them the day after she graduated from basic training.

Master Sgt. Jamey Crawford told the judge he'd made bad choices, but wanted to stay in the Air Force.

A 14-year Air Force veteran, Crawford also was given two months' hard
labor and a bad-conduct discharge after being found guilty of having
sex with both women and later lying to investigators about it.

He was the 11th instructor to stand trial for misconduct in less than
a year at Joint Base San Antonio-Lackland, the home of Air Force basic
training.

So far, 33 instructors at the base have been implicated in misconduct
with 63 recruits and technical school trainees, making the scandal the
worst in Air Force history.

Crawford also was found guilty of having unprofessional relationships
with the basic training graduate and the technical school trainee.

The Air Force's training command forbids instructors from seeing
airmen until they have finished training, with violations of the rule
punishable by up to two years in prison.

Crawford and a second instructor, Tech. Sgt. Christopher Smith, were accused of sneaking two women to a home off the base April 30, 2011, the day after basic training graduation.

Testimony showed Crawford and the 28-year-old woman, identified as Airman 1, had sex. He was separated but married at the time.

03/18/2013

The four-year prison sentence handed to an Air Force instructor for
the rape of a former trainee was described as light though not out of
bounds by four people familiar with the growing sexual assault scandal
at Joint Base San Antonio-Lackland.

On Saturday, the judge, Lt. Col. Matthew Van Dalen, could have given Staff Sgt. Eddy Soto
as long as life in prison without parole for rape, the most serious of
the six charges and eight specifications filed against him.

The four-year term “is probably at the low end, but it is a reasonable sentence,” said Frank Spinner,
an attorney known for representing high-profile defendants, including
an Air Force pilot whose rape conviction was recently overturned by an
Air Force commander in Germany, sparking an outcry in Washington.

“I think it is a little low, but I don't think it's outrageous,” said Geoffrey Corn,
a retired Army attorney now at South Texas College of Law in Houston.
“Obviously, it probably isn't going to do any favors for the Air Force
under the current climate.”

A judge today found an Air Force boot camp instructor, Staff Sgt. Eddy Soto, guilty of raping a former trainee.

Lt. Col. Matthew van Dalen moved swiftly to the sentencing phase, where the victim tearfully testified about the impact the incident had on her life.

Identified as Airman 2, she said she pushed herself to come forward
in the case in order to protect other airmen from being victimized.

“I just want to tell the Air Force if they can do something in basic
training they won't have victims like me later on,” she said before
leaving the stand, walking out of the courtroom with her head bowed.

Soto faces life without the possibility of parole in prison for the
rape, one of six charges and eight specifications of misconduct the Air
Force lodged against him.

He pleaded guilty to five of the charges, including having sex with
two women, one an airman in technical school and another who had come to
see her husband graduate from a basic training.

In a trial that began Thursday after a two-month delay, he pleaded
not guilty to rape, sexual assault and wrongful sexual contact.

Prosecutors accused Soto of raping another woman who flew from
California to San Antonio to see him, saying she firmly told him that
she did not want to have sex.

The defense said the victim wanted a relationship, and noted that as
they continued a long-distance romance she saw him texting other women
and demanded he make a choice.

03/12/2013

U.S. Army North commander Lt. Gen. William Caldwell IV, who oversaw missions at critical junctures in Iraq and Afghanistan, will retire from the Army this year.

He'll leave San Antonio for his native Georgia, where he'll become president of Georgia Military College.

“We
have made some absolutely wonderful friends and relationships that will
endure well beyond our departure,” Caldwell said in a letter revealing
his retirement from Army North, also known to many here as the 5th U.S. Army.

A
former 82nd Airborne Division commander, he oversaw the dramatic growth
of Afghan security forces from 2009 to 2011. Those forces in his tenure
went from 190,000 soldiers and police to about 330,000.

Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel
on Monday ordered the Air Force to review a case in which a commander
reversed a pilot's guilty verdict in a sexual-assault case.

Hagel's decision, made amid a basic training scandal in San Antonio,
is unlikely to prompt a reinstatement of the conviction given Lt. Col. James Wilkerson.

But in ordering Air Force Secretary Michael Donley to review the case, he also asked that a panel study the role of commanders in sexual-assault cases. Critics want the Pentagon to strip commanders, who are called convening authorities, of the power to overturn jury verdicts.

“The role of (commanders) following a conviction is an appropriate
topic for review by the panel, since the effectiveness of the system
includes, in part, whether the system serves both to do justice, and to
be seen by all participants in the system as doing justice,” Hagel
wrote.

The controversy comes as the 10th instructor at Joint Base San Antonio-Lackland goes to trial this week. Staff Sgt. Eddy Soto,
charged with raping an airman, could get life when his trial starts
Thursday. So far, 32 instructors have been charged with illicit contact
with 62 recruits and technical school trainees.

Wilkerson, the inspector general at Aviano Air Base in Italy and an
F-16 pilot, got a year in jail and was to be thrown out of the Air Force
after being convicted of aggravated sexual assault. He was accused of
fondling a physician's assistant as she slept at his home, but his
commander reversed the jury's finding.

As head of the 3rd Air Force at Ramstein Air Base in Germany, Lt. Gen. Craig Franklin
had the authority under military law to accept the jury's verdict. He
declined, saying the trial evidence didn't prove guilt. Wilkerson was
ordered reinstated, but the Air Force Personnel Center in San Antonio said he doesn't yet have a new assignment.

Sens. Barbara Boxer and Jeanne Shaheen
raised the issue with Hagel last week. Boxer, D-California, said senior
commanders shouldn't be allowed to overturn verdicts. Shaheen, D-New
Hampshire, said victims need to know the military will support them.

“If the message we send to survivors is that their cases will be
disregarded, fewer will report the crimes committed against them,” she
said in a written statement posted on her website.

03/06/2013

The budget sequester has claimed another casualty — this year's San Antonio air show.

Joint Base San Antonio cited the Air Force's decision to cancel the Thunderbirds'
2013 season, which starts April 1, in making the announcement Tuesday.
It noted the Air Force's participation in such public events as air
shows and flyovers at military funerals already had been dropped.

“We knew that, we knew it was coming,” said Richard Perez, president and CEO of the Greater San Antonio Chamber of Commerce,
which has spearheaded Celebrate America's Military Week for 43 years.
“It was disappointing. It was such a fantastic event for families in
particular, but we will move on.”

The Air Force Thunderbirds or Navy Blue Angels often are the
highlight of the annual show, which usually takes place in the fall and
draws more than 100,000 spectators.

Previous budget cuts grounded last year's air show, and officials
here had planned to hold the event every other year starting in 2013.
But the Air Force training command doesn't know if there will be a local
air show in 2015.

The show had been in limbo since $46 billion in across-the-board cuts
mandated by the budget sequester took effect Friday. Those cuts will
affect services ranging from border protection to air traffic control,
and will trigger 22 furlough days for civilian Defense Department employees.

The furloughs begin next month and will affect 20,127 civilian
employees at Joint Base San Antonio. The first furlough letters go out
March 21, and employees will start four-day work weeks April 25.

With the air show gone, U.S. Army North and other commands were reviewing options on how they'd support San Antonio's annual Fiesta, now six weeks out.

Joint Base San Antonio spokesman Brent Boller said he'd heard no official word about the matter. Army North's Col. Wayne Shanks said the services were talking about what they could and couldn't do this year.

“Those that don't cost a lot of resources we'll try to support as
best we can,” he said. “It doesn't cost much for a band to march in a
parade.”